


Pleasant Surprises

by takethembystorm



Series: Tea Break [45]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, and in my defense he is the main driver of what little plot this has, basically how Refuge could've started, but the tags were looking pretty sparse, cough, cough cough, go right ahead, i mean if you WANT to go digging through my mess of a works list for it, i'm not stopping you, not that i'm suggesting it in any way shape or form, yeah i know that papillon doesn't actually appear in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-06
Updated: 2016-10-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 19:39:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8222515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takethembystorm/pseuds/takethembystorm
Summary: Marinette gets an unexpected midnight visitor.You know how it goes from here.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://luckycharmer.tumblr.com/post/151219446366/kiss-art-please-do-number-1-marichat-but-with).

Marinette tries not to scream as she hears the rapid _th-thum-thump_ of something landing heavily on her terrace, and mostly succeeds.

“Tikki!” she hisses, gesturing madly to the spirit.  “Get behind me!”

She fumbles around on her desk as Tikki obediently zips around behind her, a warm weight in the collar of her shirt.  Something heavy, something with edges, something solid.  Sewing machine is too bulky, she’d rather not get scolded for breaking the monitor again— _shit_ , had she remembered to lock it up?—one of her knitting needles, maybe, no, ah ha!

Her hand lands on her needle-tipped scissors and closes around them, the plastic creaking under her grip.  She scurries out of sight beneath her bed.

The ceiling creaks with the rhythm of someone’s measured tread.  Then—a knocking, _rap rap rap rap._   Then silence.

Marinette’s brow furrows as the knocking comes again.  A polite burglar?  That couldn’t be right.  Or maybe they were just seeing if anyone was home.

 _Rap rap rap rap_.

Silence.

Marinette hears the skylight rattle as whoever it is tries to open it and finds it locked.  She holds her breath as she hears a second rattle, and a third, the rattling increasing in frequency each time.

Silence again.

Marinette lets herself breathe again.

The floor creaks beneath her stealthy, barefooted tread as she scurries towards the trapdoor, keeping her gaze fixed on the skylight.  It’d been a stroke of luck, haha, it being locked, saves her a lot of trouble in the _immediate_ immediate future, haha, real stroke of luck there.

All right, Dupain-Cheng, you’re babbling now.  Even if it is just in your own head.  Stop it.

Right, next course of action?

Get Mama and Papa, and call the gendarmes.

Marinette is just reaching down to open the trapdoor when she hears a _thmp_ to her side and a quiet squawking of hinges and remembers, too late, that she’d left her window open.

She darts sideways, one, two, three quick steps to the side, and stabs outwards with the scissors in the same motion, twisting with all the power of her shoulders and hips.  She feels the point hit home as the intruder pushes through the curtains, feels it skitter off to the side, feels hands close with surprising gentleness around her wrist and elbow, feels her knee impact something yielding as it snaps up on reflex, feels someone collapse half across her as they fold up with a wheeze of pain.

“Chat?” she says.

The superhero in question waves feebly as he rolls off of her and slumps to the floor.

“Hey,” he wheezes, curling into the fetal position.  “ _Ow.”  
_

“What are you doing here?” Marinette says.  Her mind runs through half a dozen possibilities, maybe this was another Copychat, or some insane cosplayer, maybe Chat had been mind-controlled again—she lingers on that for a beat longer than the others—but everything keeps boiling down to the stark reality that Chat Noir is, for some reason, sitting, well, lying and groaning in pain, here in her room.  Uninvited.

“What the hell?” she says, taking a wary step back.  “Why are you here?”

“Couldn’t,” he says, “couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.  Needed someplace safe.”

“And you decided that you could just crash here, huh?”

“I’m sorry,” he says.  He manages to sit up, wincing.  “There wasn’t time.”

“Why?” Marinette says.  “What happened?”

“My father’s Papillon,” he says.

“What?” she says into the ringing silence.

“I just found out,” Chat says, staggering to his feet.  Marinette steps forwards and grabs him under an arm, supporting some of his weight.  “I’m sorry, I just needed to get out of there.”

Marinette studies his expression as he gets his breath back and shifts his weight off of her.

It’s a wall.  Past the pain and the gritted teeth his expression is a mask, rigid and blank, his eyes staring blankly into the middle distance.

“Look, I just need to lay low for a bit,” Chat says.  “I’m sorry, I just need someplace safe, someplace where he wouldn’t look for me.”

“’He’ being your _father_ ,” Marinette says.  “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Chat says, barely managing to hide the flinch.

“No, I’m serious,” Marinette says.  “Did he hurt you or anything?  What happened?“

“Nothing happened,” Chat says.  “Look, I won’t bother you for long, just please, I need you to hide me, just long enough for me to get in contact with Ladybug, or, or the authorities, or someone.”

“Chat,” Marinette says, “you know you can talk to me, right?  I’m not going to judge you or anything, but you’re not okay right now.”

His eyes focus on her, and laser heat flickers behind them.

“Okay,” he growls, “you want to know what he did to me, fine.  He didn’t hit me; he didn’t touch me at all.  He just made me an offer.”

“Chat—”

“No, you wanted to know, you get to know,” Chat says, his tone level even as tears start to spill from his eyes.  “He made me an offer, and you know what it was?“

“What was it?” Marinette asks.

“All I had to do was betray my Lady,” he says.  “And he’d bring my mother back.”

The mask cracks.

“That’s all he wants,” Chat continues, “just to make us a family again.  He doesn’t want to rule the world, or to topple governments, or anything, he just wants us to be a family again.”

“Oh, Chat,” Marinette breathes.  “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?”  The word comes out as a lash.  “What do you know about making a choice like that?  You with, with your perfect family and your perfect life and your perfect everything?”

“Okay, hey,” Marinette says, but Chat is already cringing back from her.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Chat says.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Marinette envelops him in a hug.

“Chat,” she murmurs into his shoulder, “it’s okay to hurt, you know.  It’s fine, I’m not going to think less of you for that.  No one should.  Especially for something like this.”

She feels him sag against her, feels the mask of calm composure he’s been holding together snap, feels the warm damp of tears soak her jacket.

“He just wants to make us a family again,” he sobs into her shoulder as his knees buckle, bringing her down with him.  “God, he just wants us to be whole again, he just wants us to be happy again.  God, why can’t I just let him?”

Because he’s a monster, she wants to say.  Because he’s hurt people.  Lots of people.  Including you.  Killed you, once, killed _lots_ of people if it weren’t for Tikki.  And that kind of person, the kind of person who cares nothing about a person if they’re in his way?  Is probably not the man to let have any sort of power.

But none of that is what he needs to hear.

Nothing she can say can help.

She hugs him tighter and presses kisses into his hair, like she remembers her mother doing when Chloe had been a bit too much, and feels useless.


End file.
